With the current trend for example in wireless lighting for buildings, the number of communication nodes in a network increases and it is not uncommon for example there are more than 500 luminaires on a single floor. This trend leads to very dense networks. In addition, the transmission range of modern radio chips is pretty satisfactory. For example, it is not uncommon to have radio chips of around 20-30 meters of transmission range for typical office indoor environment.
With such a transmission range, such a communication network can be characterized as dense electrical installations since there is typically a luminaire installed every 2-4 meters. As a result, in some networks, a communication apparatus can easily hear 100+ other communication nodes within one transmission range.
In order to optimize communication and the routing of data messages, a communication apparatus should keep track of the communication nodes that it can directly communicate with in a neighbour table (NBT). This neighbour table includes a plurality of neighbour table entries corresponding each respectively to a neighbouring node. A neighbouring node is a communication node that can be reached by a considered communication apparatus within a single communication hop.
However, to keep the cost of communication apparatus low, their radio units are typically resource constrained and especially memory is limited. Therefore, storing an exhaustive list in the neighbour table of all the communication nodes in the vicinity of the communication apparatus is not an option. Typically, the nodes that shall be incorporated into the neighbour table could be based on the link quality between the communication apparatus and the neighbouring nodes. However, this may be suboptimal from communication and network throughput point of view. Indeed, if only the neighbouring nodes exhibiting the best link quality are included in the neighbour table, these would typically be the closer communication nodes, and this would result in shorter hops, and a higher hop count for a considered route.